Sasuke in the Tea House
by Jortalus
Summary: Shortly after setting out on his world-spanning journey of atonement, Sasuke finds himself in a tea house in the Land of Earth. Though the young waitress enjoys his company, there may be others there who are not happy to see him. Takes place soon after chapter 699. Reviews appreciated.


It's been a while for me, so I decided to sit down and write what came to mind. It's not especially deep or ambitious, but I had a good time with it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, its characters, its locations, or its ideas. I don't own a single thing about it, but I am a fan of its universe!

* * *

Sasuke had a lot to think about. It had been weeks since he left Konoha on his mission to atone for the things he had done, weeks as well since the last time he saw—really saw—the face of Sakura. She was in his thoughts a lot on the lonely path he had chosen to walk. _What is she thinking about? _He would often wonder to himself as he took unmeasured, lackadaisical steps along a less-traveled dirt road. The path he took was one that wound through hills and trees regularly, and even he, the seasoned shinobi with godlike eyes, had an easy time losing his direction, finding himself lost on the road of life. Kakashi might have been onto something after all. Sasuke, the last living Uchiha and the youth who had only very recently cleared the darkening fog out of his mind, was getting used to the idea of peaceful serenity at last. But did he really deserve it?

He had so many things on his mind that he barely registered the directions he moved; one thing he certainly hadn't gotten used to since the war was the lack of his left arm. He still found his mind trying to move the non-existent limb, somehow feeling the fingers clench and the chakra flow through his network. If he concentrated truly hard, he could still form a precise chidori and thrust it through the flesh of a tree with his spectral left hand before realizing that nothing had happened but a twitch of an upper arm stump. He was able to fool even himself, and sometimes the lost limb spoke to him as if it had never left. The arm was unimportant in the end; he cared much more about what its loss signified. Unlike the sensation that always shadowed his musings about his clan, all of the friends and family that were gone for good, the thoughts he had about his arm were not concentrated on loss, but rather on what he gained as the extremity crumbled away.

Naruto filled Sasuke's thoughts almost as often as Sakura did. That peppy, orange-suited clown with the obnoxious—and sometimes infectious—enthusiasm was the one responsible for where Sasuke found himself that day, shamelessly in the sun. A fine day, at that; the weather was fair, perhaps a bit humid but not overly hot in the shade. Really, it was the most pleasant day since he had set out on his journey. He had no idea how far he had gotten by then, but he guessed that he was near or past the border of the Land of Earth. The trees and hills were giving way to flat, earthy plains with scarce grass and plentiful mesas and pillars of rock. The sun had gotten hotter since the shade of the thick forests had abruptly come to an end, and when Sasuke turned to look over his shoulder and check his distance from the treeline, he saw no trees at all. Had his thoughts been venturing elsewhere so badly, again?

Truthfully, every day had been a blur, each landmark set in his mind as another source of pain and heartache for the young man. He had seen broken buildings, freshly dug graves, and weeping children. He had wanted to create peace without fully understanding what it meant. What he had believed to be a selfless path, a path that would bring all of the hatred unto himself, would have instead been a dangerous and grueling venture of loneliness. His eyes, black and neutral as he traveled, were able to stare up into the light of the sun without shame as of late, though. The words of the Kazekage rang into his head, the husky growl of an auburn-headed, reformed mass murderer. "_You're a lot like me...You've been walking through this world's darkness. That's why even a tiny ray of light ought to reach your eyes._" Sasuke found the sun nearly blinding, perhaps ironic after finally embracing the goodness of himself. He wanted to be a good man, now; a helpful man if possible. He still carried his sword, and still especially took pride in the acuity of his eyes, but he no longer sought to prove himself to anyone. He no longer believed himself to be the ultimate answer to all the world's problems.

The flat terrain made it easier for him to see where he was going, though his wandering mind did him no favors. Somehow or another, this way or that, Sasuke found himself walking into the open front door of a wood-built tea house, white squares with painted red letters hanging from a drooping thread serving as a sign. It was as generic as they came, and the Uchiha had to smirk. _Tea House_, it said. "Sure, I could use some tea," he said to himself under his breath, entering through the door frame and embracing the rush of scents that hit him like a sturdy wall. It felt good to stand beneath a roof, to escape the beating sun that seemed to amplify itself off of the surrounding earth. The Land of Earth was aptly named, giving the Land of Wind some stiff competition for having the most barren, uninviting landscapes.

The tea house was unremarkable, but it served many patrons. Odd, given how few souls Sasuke had seen traveling the road leading to the structure. Perhaps they were all like him, taking shelter from the hard light. He took a slow, careful glance around, analyzing all the other visitors. Most of them were natives, all dressed in clay colors like brown, red, and pale yellow. Sashes and bandanas were lying on tables in front of the various guests, all seemingly equipped to handle the beating rays of the star above. Sasuke lifted his left arm to wipe his brow of sweat—he tried to, anyway, but of course nothing happened and he gave himself a mental scolding. He had to use his right, instead. He had been spotted by one of the workers as he came into the foyer, a spritely young girl around fourteen, probably working there with her parents. She approached the imposing stranger without a glimmer of fear or anxiety. "Hi there, sir! Would you like a seat?" She gestured broadly with her hand and turned her body as if it were a door, and thus granted Sasuke entry to the main visiting area.

Sasuke gave a nod in response. "Yes, thank you." He was curt but polite, dipping his shoulders down to show as much respect as he could as a modest guest. He stepped out of his sandals and let his feet hit the polished wood floor. He had to admit that it felt good to free his skin from the grating cord that held his footwear close to his soles. He felt out of place immediately as he walked further in; his dark attire was clearly at odds with the warm, earthy color of the decor. He stepped through the hanging beads that separated the entrance hall from the larger, spacious dining area. He smelled the alluring aroma of tea and coffee, all sorts of different varieties that all mingled into a bouquet that reminded him of home. His hostess was wearing something simple, a brown robe that hung loose on her dainty frame, with sleeves that fell past her fingertips unless she was pointing at something or someone. She had ordinary black hair, straight and simplistic, falling down to her shoulders and then abruptly stopping. He felt her tiny hand on his upper back as she gently persuaded him in a particular direction, taking him into the corner of the rectangular room.

"How about here?" The young girl asked, gesturing toward a low table that had two mats, one across from the other on either side of the plain, square-shaped plane.

"Perfect," Sasuke replied with as genuine a smile as he could give. It was a troubled expression, looking as one might expect, given the existential weight of his burden. He still felt wrong smiling at people as if he had done no wrong, as if he had never sought to pass himself off as being better than the rest of the world. Looking back at his own arrogance sometimes disgusted him. Tucking his feet behind himself and sitting his knees on the plush mat, he rested his hand in his lap and took a deep, calm breath. That was how normal people relaxed; there was no rushing waterfall, no deep-lunged breathing exercises or pointed, rigorous chakra control test. He felt oddly free from worry as he sat there in that humble establishment, soaking himself in the low din of friendly chatter and laughter all around him. His back was to a wall, appeasing an aging, near-obsolete habit of his. He looked to the ceiling where lanterns hung, unlit for the time being as the grated ceiling let in enough natural light to let even the layman find his way from one table to the next.

His hostess was looking at him a bit strangely, her soft smile trying not to look too forward. "Sir?" She lifted a hand, trying to wave in Sasuke's attention. "I asked if you would take something to drink." She seemed so timid, and her voice was like the chirp of a bird who was curious but a bit suspicious. Had he done it again? Had he lost track of his surroundings? Yes, of course he had. He remembered that he sat down, and then his head must have been filled with thoughts that didn't need to distract him. And yet they did distract him. They always wormed their way into his subconscious, taking his attention even as he didn't realize it. What should have been background noise was instead a totally smothering intrusion to his thoughts.

Shaking his head, unable to even remember what particular thought had troubled him, Sasuke put his right hand to his forehead to rub his temple, feigning a headache. "Uh, yes. Just bring me whatever you have that's hot. Something to clear my head, maybe." He gives that troubled smile to the girl, and she beamed back a genuine grin, perking her shoulders up again as if she were proud of herself for finally earning a response.

"Right away!" She chimes, turning on agile feet to practically skip toward the back of the room, sliding a wood framed, paper-filled doorway to the side and disappearing behind a wall, presumably to reach the kitchen area. Free to look around without the feeling that he was being watched or standing out, Sasuke took to studying the other guests more scrupulously than before. He saw a few headbands, either those exclusive to Iwagakure, or those passed out to the Shinobi Alliance. It seemed a matter of preference. The three men in the opposite corner of the medium sized room seemed somber, almost disturbingly quiet to the Uchiha. He pondered, tilting his head forward and down, giving the impression that he was lost in thought. Instead, he was watching with upturned eyes, his right iris spiraling from a black, deep border and shifting into the telltale red glow of a Sharingan. Just one eye, just enough to read the whispering lips.

The man at the left of the distant table was the largest, and he had not removed his bandana like some of the others. It was red and tied into a knot at the base of his skull, covering any hair he might have had beneath. His face was like stone, fitting the headband that covered his forehead bearing the stylized rocks symbolizing the nearby hidden village. His arms were enormous, like tree trunks ripped straight out of the forest and carved into powerful limbs. Sasuke reckoned that he was the muscle of the trio, fit to knock the sturdy tea house onto its side with little more than a firm smack. The big man's companions were much smaller, much more slippery looking. Brothers, maybe even twins. They were easily a decade younger than the craggy one. Those two maintained the Alliance headbands, perhaps out of some hope of lasting peace, or perhaps because they were too lazy to swap them out for their old ones.

As Sasuke knew, it took some people a long time to return home from the battlefield. There were a lot of dead to bury, and a lot of damage to repair. There were funerals, logistics problems, and all sorts of unpleasant business. Sasuke had been distracted by his dealings with Kakashi and Naruto back in Konoha, and ended up missing most of the grunt work. He resented himself somewhat for that; how could he truly share in the pain and sorrow of what the war had caused without getting his hands—well, hand—dirty in the thick of it all? He had been the one to swing the sword that sparked the war. His attacks on Killer Bee and the Kage Summit were foolish. They gave Obito the chance he was looking for to really strike his message to the world.

The final Uchiha could tell simply by looking at the lopsided trio in the tea house that they had each lost much. Their lips moved slowly and steadily, and though he couldn't make out their voices, he could 'hear' their words with ludicrous ease thanks to his empowered eye. The conversation was about their fallen comrades, about the ones whose bodies were so mangled or shriveled that there was no way to know which had been which. The fourth great war was indeed a bloody conflict, and though it lasted for a number of days that could be counted on a single set of fingers, it was going to affect the entire future. Just a few men and women, a few misguided dreamers, had ruined the lives of thousands. Entire towns had been wiped from the map, with the Juubi itself having caused an entire country's landscape to form into a barren, rubble-heavy wasteland. A few times on his journey, Sasuke had even seen the remnants of enormous tree roots, reminders that the Mugen Tsukuyomi very nearly took everyone forever.

His thoughts of battle were disrupted again by a bubbly, smiling face leaning close to his cheek, the serving girl bent at the waist with an angle like that of a kunai's point. "You there, mister?" She asked, and Sasuke found himself instinctively shutting off his Sharingan. The Uchiha were seen as being the ones responsible for the war, and it wasn't exactly a lie for people to say so. Heroes and monsters alike had come from his clan, and at that point, he still didn't know which one of the two he would call himself. The girl had tea, and it was strong stuff. She was handing it to his left side, and he knew that she couldn't tell that he was significantly crippled. The long, dark black travel cloak did a good job of hiding his physique, and so he turned at the waist and reached his right arm out from beneath the fabric to grasp the handle of the cup.

"Sorry, miss...I'm not thinking straight." He tilts the searing hot cup to his lips, taking a modest sip of the deep black liquid. It hit him nicely, clearing his head with the rush of flavorful leaves and a dash of some sort of citrus juice, probably lemon. "Much better," he finds himself saying without having to make it up as he went along. He did feel better, even if it was only a little.

"I'm, uh," she started shyly. "I'm Mika. Can I sit with you for a while? I need a break." She was already moving to sit at the table, a blush on her teenaged cheeks, her lips painted a soft pink that went well with her otherwise mundane skin tone. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't stunning, either. At any rate, she was just a tad too young for Sasuke to feel any attraction toward her. He had never been one to look at a girl's attractiveness first, anyhow. Normally he was looking for weapons. "What's your story?" Mika asked with a disarming cant of her head, her too-long sleeves covering her hands innocently as they sat in her lap.

Sasuke opened his mouth to speak, but he was hung up. What _was _his story? Why did his throat feel dry when he was beckoned to talk about himself? In the past, he would have dismissed her. _None of your business._ A part of him wanted to say it aloud, but he refrained. He had been that closed-off, antisocial man before. He wanted to try something different. Instead of a glib remark or a callous disregard for the girl's attention, Sasuke took another sip of tea before setting the porcelain vessel down upon a circular coaster. "My story is long, and it might be confusing." He offers that much, pauses for a glance at his reflection within the darkness of his tea, and then looks back to Mika's enthralled visage. "I've done bad things, and I've done good things."

"Have you done more bad things, or done more good things?" She was hanging on his every word, regardless of how bare he was with the details. She was curious and her interest seemed awfully genuine.

"I don't know anymore. I thought I was serving justice. I thought I was going to bring peace." He finds it tough to stare into her eyes, her dimpled cheeks sending the perfect picture of innocence. She was his opposite, or at least that was how he felt. "I don't know what was bad, or what was good, Mika." He admits it slowly, rolling his tongue as he spoke.

"Are you a shinobi?" She looked to his long cloak. She must have seen his sword beneath the draping cloth when he retrieved his teacup. "Which village do you come from? Are you from Iwagakure?" She was on rapid fire mode with her questions, and she seemed to be answering herself as quickly as she could inquire. "You don't look like you're from around here. Too scrawny." She giggled sheepishly, putting her sleeve in front of her face to cover her smile.

"I am a shinobi," he begins simply. "I went to the academy in Konohagakure, and I was on a team with..." He catches himself yammering, and allows himself a sip of tea to regroup. He didn't need to mention Naruto. He didn't want too much attention. "Mm, they were a fantastic team. They still are, but I don't know if they see me as much of a teammate anymore."

Mika's giggling had turned to a sullen, slanted frown as her next questions formed in her mind. "Well, you're here all alone. Did something happen during the war? Did somebody die?" Sasuke didn't like that cloudy look on her face. It made his soul ache.

"A lot of people died, Mika." He sighed, closing both eyes and taking a deep breath through his nose, savoring the tea that steamed in front of him. "My team, though? They're too strong to let a war get in their way. Not even the Juubi would be enough to turn them from their path. They may be the strongest people I've ever known." Sasuke had a smile again, but it was real. He thought of Sakura. He owed her a lot more than he would ever openly admit. She was important to him, but he kept her at arm's length. How could he just come out and confess that she meant so much, after all he had done?

The air shifted a bit, almost ominously. "I didn't see the Juubi, but I heard its roar." Mika wasn't so plucky anymore when she talked. That inhuman, ear-slicing howl probably gave a sweet girl like her some terrible nightmares. Sasuke felt a twinge of guilt for even invoking the cursed beast's name.

"It's gone now. It's not coming back, either. I promise." He assures Mika with a nod, confident like only a man who had done the deed himself could be. He looked to where his left arm used to be. The hand that helped to seal Kaguya's fate was gone forever; Naruto's, too. No trace of the witch-woman remained in that dimension, save for the beasts. Might it have been better to seal the bijuu away as well? Sasuke still had his doubts, but Naruto was quite a persuasive speaker.

Mika was watching Sasuke's every movement, studying him like he was a textbook, but unable to find much that wasn't plainly on the surface. Another question came popping out of her mouth. "Is something wrong with your arm?" She nudged her head toward Sasuke's left, her right. "You keep taking your tea with your right."

"I don't have the left, anymore. I lost it because I was a fool." He reaches out for another sip out of the white cup. The inside was stained a little bit with tea, no doubt the dishes had served long hours for many years in this place.

"I'm glad it was just your arm. I like having you as a guest; it wouldn't be the same if you had died, right?" Mika was reaching a coy finger up to twirl her shoulder-length hair, seeming a bit flustered. Sasuke wasn't a stranger to that sort of behavior. He knew that girls had a strong tendency to fall for him once they got a good look at him. It created the occasional awkward situation, but the attention was flattering, at least.

"And I'm honored that you'd accept me, Mika." He was getting better at showing humility. He had the gentle tug of a smug smirk on the corner of his lips, but that was just a habit. Even when he was trying to be humble, he portrayed himself with sly confidence. His eyes were slaying poor Mika, even as they sat unpowered, black just like hers. He gave her his undivided attention. "The tea is sublime."

"Oh, I...thanks, mister, I made it myself. Just for you." She put her hands together in front of her chest, tapping her pointer fingertips together and rubbing them up and down in an almost rehearsed way. She was adorable, but a small part of Sasuke's cynical mind wondered if she had been coached that way to better appeal to customers. "I can bring more if you want." She was doing her best to avoid stuttering, and it was working pretty well.

Sasuke flexed the fingers of his phantom left hand, feeling the muscles tighten and the sinew straining against the tension. It all felt so real that he had to look at the empty space to assure himself that he hadn't spontaneously sprouted a new limb. "Maybe another time, Mika. I should get going." He moves to stand up, setting down a few bills on the table, probably more than enough to cover a single cup of fresh tea.

"Before you go," Mika answered with a hand half lifted, falling limp as she hesitated. She didn't want to seem rude. She spoke more softly. "Can I know your name?" That hopeful, disarming smile made a return. Her teeth were little and white, but they weren't perfectly aligned. Her imperfections were minor, and in truth they only added more to her unique charm.

Sasuke wasn't caught off guard by the request, but he hadn't decided on whether or not to tell the girl his name. Maybe the Land of Earth didn't have a particular hatred for him, but he wouldn't have been surprised if there were a few enemies laying about; even at that moment, in that very tea house. The kind smile on his new friend's face forced him to momentarily discard his better sense, and he answered with his name. "Sasuke." He kept it brief, already beginning to walk out. He froze as Mika echoed him, filling in the blanks easily.

"Sasuke Uchiha?" She was wide-eyed, and a sleeve-covered hand formed a tent over her mouth, then her other hand solidified the blockade. She realized right away that she shouldn't have blurted it out loud. It was a reflex and she was instantly remorseful. She opened a little tunnel between her hands, and she whispered out through it. "Sorry. You should probably go." She nods her head toward the front door. Enemies indeed; Mika probably knew them personally. That would complicate things if anybody overheard their exchange. "Thanks for stopping by." She gave a polite bow with her hands crossed below her waist.

"I'm sure I'll return on my way out of the region." Sasuke was looking around, his eyes still blacked out, not wanting to make himself even more obvious. There was a chance that nobody heard; even at her loudest, Mika was...well, meek. The soft clamor of discussion never came to an abrupt halt; no tea cups were dropped in stunned surprise. It was probably safe for the young Uchiha to make a calm, collected departure. "Thank you for your companionship."

Mika gave a giddy little wave. Clearly she wasn't deterred by finding out his identity. Either she didn't know the full extent of his crimes, or she was naïve enough to accept him blindly anyway. She gave a practiced reply, though she wanted to be more personal. She understood the implications of who she had just finished serving. "We look forward to hosting you again, dear sir." She gave another bow as Sasuke slipped his sandals back onto his feet, finding them right where he had left them a short while earlier near the door. On his way out, he noticed that he caught a glance from one table—the trio of shinobi with the mountainous man as their presumed leader. Silently, Sasuke hoped that they wouldn't come after him. He had done well at avoiding conflict thus far on his journey.

He wandered again, leaving the tea house and climbing a mountain path. The winding road was made of red stone, and the young adult walked along its soothingly hard surface for hours. The carved walkway followed a narrow passageway deep into a valley. Soon enough, Sasuke was flanked on both sides by massive, arching walls of spiked rocks. He felt for a moment as if he had walked into the jaws of a terrible beast made of the planet itself, and he smirked inwardly. _Can't be worse than anything I've faced so far_, he thought to himself. There was a thin sliver of sunlight peaking through the splintered ceiling of the natural slopes. The cavern was probably formed a long time ago by a river that had since dried up or seeped into the ground. If nothing else, the claustrophobic passage kept the sun off of his dark hair, so he continued on undaunted. He caught himself thinking about how this cramped route would be ideal for an ambush, and as soon as the thought hit his mind, he felt a twitch of the rocky ground beneath him. "Damn it," he whispered. He had _really_ hoped that they wouldn't come after him.

* * *

"This plan came together perfectly, sensei," the slithery guy said quietly to the stone-faced giant from the tea house. Gorda was the giant's name, and he had a special hatred for the Uchiha clan. Madara, "Obito", Itachi, Shisui; all of them famed warriors, and each of them rubbed him the wrong way. He didn't care that their members were so nearly extinct, only that the blasted bloodline was entirely responsible for the recent war. They were responsible for Gorda's lost family; a wife and son. It was a wound so fresh that the soil over their graves hadn't even fully dried after finally arranging a burial; the Juubi didn't leave many bodies to bury in the towns it vaporized. Hearing such a spiteful name spoken so nonchalantly by the serving girl back there had set Gorda's blood boiling hotter than he had felt it in years. With their deaths, it was a simmer; a strong heat that stifled his breath and stopped him from walking forward—it was sorrow, not anger. To know that one of the accursed Uchiha had passed into the Land of Earth? Now that was anger. More than anger, it was rage.

"As perfectly as it could on such short notice, anyway," said the opposite snake-like man, less than half of Gorda's size, whether height or width. The infuriating Uchiha had taken a select road from the tea house, one that Gorda knew would take him through this dangerously confined tunnel. Gorda and his companions were adept at earth style techniques, and they were all three itching to take out some frustrations. The nations were cooperating, but there were still rogue ninjas and all-around bad people to police. Sasuke Uchiha was the prime opponent to vent on, the three had decided together once he left. They knew better than to try to follow him; the Sharingan was a legendary power, and Sasuke was rumored to have eyes even more powerful than that. No, following him was out of the question, so they made to intercept him further down the way. It was a long walk but a short run, and for the sake of their anger, the trio had set out from the tea house to circle around the slopes that lead to the top of the underground cavity.

The plan was simple: wait for the Uchiha to enter the cave, and then collapse it on him from above. Easy, clean, potentially accidental. Gorda didn't want to be listed as a murderer; even though the Uchiha were largely considered Class A criminals, Sasuke himself had been contentiously pardoned of all wrongdoings. Gorda and numerous others disagreed with the ruling, but who could go against the wishes of the war hero Naruto Uzumaki? Kakashi Hatake, the Hokage, also put in a strong word advocating forgiveness. No doubt Sasuke's future would be watched very closely; the man who killed the last Uchiha would either be a hero or scum, depending on who wrote the story. Gorda intended to make it an easy case. The unstable cavern had been a risk for years, but its use was extremely rare. The Tsuchikage never ordered for it to be manually collapsed, but preparations had been made just in case. The whole thing would tumble down with the help of just three earth users. Gorda, Nicks, and Monti made three.

They were confident, but sweat was beading beneath their headbands anyway. The twin serpent-like brothers favored dark yellow clothes, dressed in loose shirts and pants that were nearing orange in color, but were still closer to the warmth of a noonday sun than that of the quiet sunset that had begun. Gorda himself was dressed in a deep brown tunic, showing off the hugeness of his arms by foregoing sleeves. His muscles rippled with shaky preparation, and he laid his hands down flat on the sun-baked rocks that were precariously situated over the cavern. Sasuke was down there, somewhere; Gorda was too wary of the Sharingan to risk looking into the small cracks that peered into the darkness to find out. His voice was nearly silent. "On three. Get ready, Nicks. Monti." Gorda gave a reassuring nod to both of them. They were all three situated triangularly compared to one another, knelt down low with their bare palms flat on the ground. "One," he said, trembling with trepidation. "Two..." He continued, thinking of the possible consequences. If the attempt succeeded, they would need to act quickly to escape. If it failed? Well, the Uchiha had a particular reputation when it came to vengeance. Gorda swallowed a knot in his throat that had been bugging him for the past hour, and then he shut his eyes. "...Three."

Adrenaline took over as all three of them took their hands from the ground, forming a plethora of complex hand signs, fueling the transference of chakra throughout their bodies. They were in perfect synch, not even looking at one another to know that there was a fluidity to their cooperation. They had been friends for over ten years, and Nicks and Monti were twin brothers on top of that. The symmetry was admirable as all six hands slammed into the rock on the same heartbeat. Three voices spoke in their own minds: **Earth Release, Rock Lodging Destruction**.

It was a particularly effective technique when it came to knocking down caves; many Iwagakure soldiers had put it to use to destroy enemy intelligence strongholds during past wars. Few opponents ever expected a sturdy cave to randomly fall in on itself. The hazards of underground networks while waging war against the Land of Earth were immeasurable. They ruled the deep places of the world, and Sasuke had just walked into one of them. Gorda was the first one to stand back up, as micro-tremors rocked the cavern beneath. "Go, let's go; _now_!" He shouted hurriedly, already turning on a sandal-wearing foot to sprint off of the rapidly decaying ground. He could feel the earth crumbling beneath him as his panic-fueled footfalls thumped, but he looked over his shoulder to ensure that Nicks and Monti were on his tail. They were close, and they ran faster than Gorda's massive frame would allow. That was why he needed a brief head-start.

They cleared the danger zone, all three men landing safely on the sturdy ground mere seconds after the jutsu had been cast, following a massive leap off of a hanging cliff. They were fast enough to be shinobi, and each one took a moment to congratulate themselves. There was now a gaping fissure where their quiet meeting had previously taken place, and it extended a mile in either direction, following a near-straight path from one road to the next. If nothing else, the passage would be much safer once all the rubble had been cleared out. In the best case scenario, the Uchiha clan was permanently wiped out, and the Sharingan would never be feared again. Otherwise, Gorda and his students had a long day ahead of them.

* * *

Sasuke had seen the attack coming, and as the earth trembled, he closed his eyes, letting out a calm sigh. He would have to find a way to solve this problem, but he preferred not to make a huge display. Burn the rocks away? Toss them aside with Susano'o? Leap from rubble to rubble to reach the top? It didn't really matter which method he used, because the end result would be the same; Sasuke would be on the surface with his would-be assassins. What was he going to do with them, then?

He opted for a simple approach; he reached his hand beneath the trappings of his cloak and found the hilt of his blade. Drawing it quickly, he fueled his system with chakra and swiftly converted it into lightning energy, coursing it through his blade and giving a single slice. The rocks directly above him had been minced in half and then vaporized by the tremendous energy of his chakra; he was still getting used to just how overwhelmingly powerful his own techniques had become. He flexed his right hand, knowing for certain that it was there. With a momentary path cleared and the walls on either side of him then beginning to squeeze together, preparing to collapse utterly, he gave a single flex of both legs, launching his body from the dank, slick cave floor and into the setting sunlight. The sky was orange, now; not blue like it had been when he left the tea house. The day was nearly over, and yet he still had much to do. Sasuke landed effortlessly on the outside of the new ravine; the collapsing stones had piled up neatly. He hadn't doubted an assassination attempt from the start, but seeing the systematic, clean collapse fully convinced him of who was responsible.

He hadn't needed his Sharingan, and his eyes remained inactive. He scanned the horizon, full of spires and flying birds who had been startled by the deafening earthquake. From time to time, another small pebble would drop further into the depths, each of them losing its long battle against its own balance, one after the other. The encroaching evening was peaceful quickly after the collapse, and Sasuke found himself hoping that the attackers had fled far, far away. He didn't want to have to deal with them directly, but he didn't want to flee himself. Suddenly, he heard a faint sound—panting, only a few dozen meters to his right. He froze for a moment, _"Have you done more bad things, or done more good things?" _Mika's voice was in his head for that instant, probably because she was there when he first saw the faces of his presumed assailants. He had an instinct to kill all three of them quickly, but it was repressed by all of his willpower. He wasn't a killer; not anymore. He didn't want to be one.

He took the first step toward the sound of breath, and calmly approached an outcropping. Leaning over the side of it, he looked below to see an unfamiliar face. It was somebody he had never seen, a short young man with waved brown hair clutching a kunai, looking up at Sasuke with a determined slant in his eyes. "You survived? But how!?" The young man said. Sasuke still had his sword clutched firmly in his hand, and without a word, he hopped down from the ledge and drove his blade into the young man's heart. It was easy to cut into, just as Sasuke had expected; the poof of white smoke revealed what he already knew. The young man was a transformed clone; a secondary diversion for a secondary trap. The diversion disappeared into nothingness with a rush of steam, and a howling voice came at Sasuke from behind. The seasoned Uchiha turned on his heel, raising his sword defensively to block seven shuriken thrown from different angles. The honed metal of the tiny, thrown blades scraped off the edge of Sasuke's sword, sending each one in a different direction to stick into the rocky cliffside behind him. Still no need for a Sharingan.

This attacker was short, with tufts of brown hair swelling out in three separate, messy directions. It was one of the sneaky-looking ones from the tea house, just like he figured. "Did you come alone?" Sasuke asked the lone man, who was now clutching another handful of shuriken in each palm, fingers primed in a throwing position.

"Yeah, I did," he lied. Sasuke knew it was a lie, but he permitted the terrified man to speak. "I wanted to make you pay for what you are. You don't deserve to live while so many others had to die, Uchiha!" He threw the next volley, and Sasuke's sword was there to meet each one. Even with just his right hand, deflecting the assault was pitiful. "The man who's going to kill you, his name is Monti!"

With that bold exclamation, Monti leapt at Sasuke with his hands forming into a seal. It was the tiger seal, the telltale sign of an incoming fire jutsu. Sasuke stood calmly as Monti's chest swelled up, awaiting the blast of flames to come. Just as Sasuke was opening his mouth to speak, he felt the earth tremble again, but rather than form into a quake this time, a pair of dome-shaped walls lifted up from beneath the earth to encapsulate him on either side. Suddenly, with the cliff at his back and overarching curves of rock at either side, Sasuke found himself in a man-sized kiln. _So much for coming alone, _Sasuke thought as he gave himself the usual confident smirk, huffing quietly as the searing heat emerged from Monti's mouth and sprayed into the confined oven. Sasuke opened his eyes, finally deciding to play his hand. An ethereal barrier formed around the young 'victim' of the assault, and the flames stopped short of touching him, being sucked into the front of the spherical bubble and disappearing into nothing. With his left eye open plainly, he displayed his prowess to his opponent.

Monti must have expected to see a charred husk left over, because the shocked whiteness of his previously-rosy cheeks was instantaneous. "Y-you, what in the hell?" he stammered out, taking a step back. The massive man and the other one, the one that looked just like Monti, hopped out from their hiding places to see what was wrong. "There's no way that just happened, Gorda!" Monti screamed in a panic, pointing a finger toward Sasuke, never daring to take his eyes off the Uchiha. Sasuke took advantage of the stunned eye contact, and with a simple twitch of his eyelid, his chakra was infused into his left eye and a perfect genjutsu was cast upon poor Monti. The loudest of the three fools, so far, was reduced to a gurgling mess as he collapsed backward, his knees buckling and his shoulders hitting the ground before his head.

"Monti, are you okay!?" The other one shouted, running to aid what must have been his brother. Sasuke allowed the touching reunion, watching with an amused smirk still plastered to his face. His observation was impeded by the intrusion of the huge one, the one who was presumably the leader of the operation.

"Nicks, break him free of the genjutsu. Don't look this kid in the...eyes..." the mammoth—he must have been Gorda—began, but he felt himself unable to continue. He had just come face to face with an eye that terrified him. It wasn't a Sharingan, but a grayish-violet sphere whose coloration filled Sasuke's whole socket. The iris seemed to continue indefinitely, flowing in increasingly broad concentric circles and dotted with the tomoe that should have marked the eye as a Sharingan. "Damn, he's...that's a Rinnegan, isn't it?"

"Rinnegan?" Nicks answered, still trying to disrupt Monti's chakra flow. The genjutsu seemed to have an absolute hold, though, and nothing could break through. Tearing his attention nervously from his brother, Nicks risked a look at Sasuke's eye. It matched everything he had been told about the Rinnegan, except this one had markings like a Sharingan, too. Nicks he felt a chill run down his spine; "We can't win, can we, Gorda?" He trembled out.

"I don't think so, Nicks," Gorda admitted, but he clenched his fists and held his arms out low, bent at the elbows on either side of his waist in a defiant battle stance. "But we've already dug our graves; let's not waste the life we have left feeling terror." Gorda took a more aggressive approach. He must have known what the Rinnegan was capable of, or at least knew that chakra wouldn't be any use. He charged headlong toward Sasuke, who was still situated calmly within the impromptu stove.

Sasuke had allowed them to converse, and when Gorda's cranium was about to impact with Sasuke's sternum, he sent a bit more chakra to his eye and triggered a technique that nobody outside of Team 7 had ever seen. Swapping himself with Nicks, Sasuke instantly appeared over the frothy-mouthed, unconscious body of Monti, watching from an amusing angle as Gorda's skull slammed with concussive force into Nicks' chest, pinning him roughly to the cliff side and cracking the stony foundation, knocking a few of Monti's deflected shuriken loose. The squawk of breathless agony that escaped Nicks' gaping mouth would have been hilarious if Sasuke hadn't been stricken with instant regret. _I shouldn't have done that; maybe I deserve to take a hit or two from these people. _He may have just broken most of Nicks' ribs with his little stunt, but it was a bit too late, now. "Stop, Gorda," Sasuke said patiently, trying not to reveal the worry he had for Nicks. It was one hell of a strong headbutt. Gorda was no worse for wear, physically, but he was shuddering with the realization that he had stricken the wrong target. "It's not going to accomplish anything. I don't want to hurt you, or your friends, but you're making it difficult." He moved the tip of his sword to the mouth of its sheathe, gradually sliding the silvery, glistening blade into the holster.

"You shouldn't live, kid," Gorda said as his burly hands dusted off his tunic, patting himself down after gently taking Nicks from the Nicks-shaped imprint in the low cliff side and laying him on his back. The two jesters had been dealt with; Gorda was the mastermind, and the one Sasuke knew he would need to convince of his good intentions. "We've all suffered because of you and your clan, Sasuke Uchiha. We won't just forget what your kind put us through."

"I'm not the rest of my family. Not anymore," Sasuke replied, his Rinnegan glowing with a faint purple light, basked in the orange-yellow of the sunset. "I want to make amends. How can I do that?" He was unarmed, now, though his eyes were fully active. A Mangekyo with the shape of an atom, and his Rinnegan, the most feared of all eyes. He refused to hide from who he was, but he could at least put away his physical weapon. His right arm was extended to his side, and he shed his travel cloak as a way of saying that he had nothing to hide. Beneath, he wore his usual outfit of a gray top, black pants and a purple sash. The rope that he had been gifted with by Orochimaru had been scorched and ripped in his battle with Naruto, so he no longer wore it. He stood there, exactly who he was.

Gorda saw the show of peacefulness, but he kept his eyes away from Sasuke's. He didn't know that Sasuke had become so immensely powerful that his genjutsu didn't need eye contact, but it didn't matter. From Sasuke's perspective, the fighting was over once Nicks was injured. "There's nothing you can do. This damage can't be repaired; we can't just fill the holes with soil and call it even." Gorda's voice was gruff and unrestrained, sounding like a wild bison as he seemed to prime himself for another charge. "Those people were my family, and they're gone because of you!" Gorda charged, and Sasuke remained standing in his neutral position, his eyes focused intensely on the enormous man who rushed at him.

There was no defense against Gorda's raw emotion. Sasuke felt the pain in his voice, and he could see it in the huge male's eyes. A man who was several times Sasuke's size was nowhere near strong enough, physically, to force the young Uchiha to lose his footing or take a step back, but the sincerity of Gorda's pain was enough to rattle Sasuke's heart. And so Sasuke took a massive headbutt to the chest, one that was charged with chakra much like one of Sakura's punches, and it contained all of a man's regrets and ambitions. This man wanted Sasuke dead, and of course Sasuke could not grant that wish. Still, he allowed himself to take the hit.

Gorda felt satisfied as his skull slammed into the ribs of Sasuke; he knew by the sight of the kid's feet that he had connected with the correct target this time, and he felt tremendous resistance from the flesh and bones; it wasn't a clone. This was the real thing. He had landed a solid hit on a Sharingan user; no, a _Rinnegan _user. Everything he knew about the Rinnegan had forced him to the conclusion that a physical attack was the only hope, and that it had better be a good one. He felt his breath squeeze out of him as he roared out the last of his resolve, pumping his entire chakra reserve into that singular headbutt, hoping to splatter Sasuke's entire body all over the surrounding cliffs. With a final surge, the largest exertion he had ever felt, Gorda shoved his chakra to a fine point on his forehead and let it release, sending a gargantuan shockwave through Sasuke's chest and beyond. The waves of force projected through the air and the ground, causing a quake that rivaled the three-way earth style technique that started the whole conflict. Gorda shut his eyes tight as he focused on seeing his hit through to the end, and once the full force of the explosive impact had run its course, he allowed his gaze to groggily split open again, giving himself a hazed view of Sasuke's sandaled feet—and a skid mark from where the teen was pushed back through the gravel, only a few inches long.

Sasuke had taken every bit of the hit, but his body was harder than it had ever been. He thought about raising Susano'o just in case, but there was no need. He took the impact with only the slightest wince of pain as the apex of the blow hit him and reverberated through the earth around him. He gave a huff as he exhaled, then began to breathe again, with Gorda's bandana-wrapped skull still planted firm against Sasuke's shirt. "Did you get it out of your sys-" Sasuke began to mock, but he was cut short by an aftershock, another quake that rattled the ground. The impact did little to his sturdy body, but the surrounding terrain wasn't so solid after the nearby collapse of the cave. There must have been another set of caverns deep below where they stood. Maybe Gorda planned this all along; maybe he wanted to bury himself and his friends along with Sasuke. Sasuke's fears were confirmed when Gorda's bear-like arms wrapped around his upper and lower back, seeking to entrap the whole body of his victim.

Gorda thought to himself in that moment, _I'm sorry Nicks, I'm sorry Monti. The ground is going to swallow us all, but I swear on each of our lives that I'll take this monster with us!_ The trembling earth began to crack and gape, but Gorda kept his hands harshly clamped onto Sasuke's shoulder and his hip, focusing all of his bodily strength on restraining the Uchiha's right arm; the only arm he had left. Seeing that disability had renewed the Iwagakure shinobi's confidence. His revenge was assured, now. His eyes were down, so the decrepit Rinnegan couldn't cast a spell over him; his strength now was purely physical, so even if his chakra were to be sucked away, the effects would come too slowly. The earth had decided to gobble them all down, and he thought that to be a fitting death for a trio of shinobi like himself and the twins.

Sasuke wasn't ready to die, and it would have been ease itself to break Gorda's grip and walk nonchalantly to the safest part of the terrain. Cursing his new-found altruism, he couldn't just let those three die, even if they had been trying to give their lives in an attempt to murder him. He wanted to be helpful; he was a born again advocate of second chances. Pain makes a person do crazy things, and Sasuke knew that as well as anybody ever had. Reaching down with his right arm, easily defying the enormous strength of Gorda, Sasuke lifted up a small rock, and with his feet on unsteady, collapsing ground, his eyes were effortlessly taking in even the most minute of details about his surroundings. The Sharingan showed him that the crust was falling apart under his feet, but it also showed him the most stable path to take. Confident that Gorda wasn't going to let go, even if his life depended on it, Sasuke broke into a swift run, headed toward Nicks' laid-out form. With only one arm, it wasn't going to be easy to carry everybody at once.

Gorda felt himself lifted up like a plaything by Sasuke's powerful legs, and he couldn't help but laugh out his hopelessness. Just what went into this kid? The Rinnegan, the body of a mountain packed into the form of a teenager, and now he was running for the out-cold body of a failed assassin. Monti was still under a genjutsu, so Gorda assumed that the loudmouth was already eaten up by the collapsing world. Everything's elevation had gotten lower over the past few moments, shards of rock upturned and churning against one another as fragments struggled to find a new resting place. Gravity was sucking them all deeper and deeper, and even Sasuke's feet were now forced to trudge through constantly warping granite, buried to the knees in ferocious, hungry earth.

Sasuke felt the window of time closing, and with himself positioned over Nicks, he then turned his Rinnegan to look upon Monti, several meters away. With a flex, a flick of chakra, and a subconscious focus on the small stone he had picked up, Sasuke forced Monti to swap places with the rock and rest beside Nicks. With Gorda, Nicks and Monti all nicely gathered up, he breathed a sigh of relief just as all four of them were sucked abruptly downward, rocks, dirt and barren trees smothering them within a split second.

All was quiet on the surface, then, another gaping maw opened up in the Land of Earth. The scars of battle were left behind, and silence gripped the uneven geography as the sun finally set itself behind the peaks in the distance. Night had fallen, and dusk was leaving the world behind. A massive purple hand thrust itself out from beneath the tightly packed debris, lifting itself up and bringing behind it an enormous shell made of pure chakra. It glowed brightly in the stifling darkness, creating a sort of beacon for all to see; the commotion had attracted a number of animals, but the enormous expanse of the Land of Earth allowed the battle to take place in seclusion; not another intelligent soul had seen the clash unfold.

As Sasuke bid his Susano'o to drag him out of the ruin, it was revealed to the sky that his chakra construct had three additional passengers, all unconscious but very much alive as he used both powerful arms to lift the shell's legs out from beneath the surface. _At least I still have both arms like this, _Sasuke thought to himself as he carried Nicks, Monti and Gorda away from the actively shifting crater and onto more solid ground. After he was certain that nothing else was going to collapse, testing it with a brief stomp of his Susano'o's foot, he dispelled the construct and allowed himself and his passengers to lightly thunk onto the ground. Sasuke gave a sigh, and sat with his legs crossed, his hand on his right knee in a patient, meditative state.

Gorda awoke a few minutes later, and it was a violent emergence. He gasped and writhed around, expecting to have to dig himself free from a mile of vertical entombment. Once he realized that the darkness had little dots of a starry sky, he calmed somewhat, looking to his right, and then to his left, seeing the faintly rising and falling chests of Nicks and Monti to either side, and then he lifted his head from the ground, propping himself up on his elbows as he bent at the waist to see Sasuke there, overlooking all three of them. "You slippery bastard; why did you save us?" He didn't seem surprised to see that Sasuke was alive and without a scratch, save for his missing travel cloak.

"Somebody would have been sad if I had let you die," Sasuke said calmly, his eyes closed and his head turned down.

"Yeah? Who?" Gorda asked, defiant.

"I don't know. A friend, a family member; a favorite pet, maybe? It doesn't matter; somebody would have been upset if you didn't come home to them." Sasuke tapped his knee with one finger, thinking deeply. "The same goes for those two. You are all precious to somebody."

Gorda was silenced by the choice of words, but he found his booming voice again in short order. "Precious to somebody... My family was precious to me, but now they're gone! Why couldn't you just let me die like the fool I am!?" He didn't seem especially grateful for his second chance.

Sasuke stood up, resting his wrist on the hilt of his sheathed sword. "I never want to see the death of somebody precious again, whether they're precious to me, or to somebody whom I've never met." He turned as if to walk away, but before he took the first step, he spoke one more time. "If you think you're alone, you should look beside you." With that, Sasuke began to walk, and Gorda was still too weak to get up and follow him.

Gorda did look beside himself, and he saw the dirty, sleeping faces of Monti and Nicks, the two people who were, admittedly, the closest thing to family that he had left. They weren't especially old; he himself was past thirty, but those two were as young as Sasuke. Gorda had been their teacher since they graduated from the academy in Iwagakure. People always said the twins looked like serpents, but really they were just kids wearing scary faces. When they were unconscious, sleeping like that? They reminded Gorda of the bright eyed youngsters who first clapped for him when he showed them how to raise a wall of earth. They didn't originally have much talent, but as twins, they began to work off of one another; they even took to forming one half of a hand seal a piece, then combining their hands to form a basic technique. They grew and grew, eventually coming into their own, but they never left one another's side. Just like they were all Gorda had left, Gorda was the only one there for them. They would follow him anywhere, and he almost dragged them to their doom over something as petty as revenge. The understanding took a long time to sink in, but it eventually did. By that time, the twins were waking up. They rubbed their eyes, yawning and torquing their spines in unison.

"Hey, sensei...what happened?" Monti asked; he recovered nicely from the genjutsu, it seemed. His cheeks had their color back and his snaky nose was flexing as he tried to make sense of where he was.

Nicks spoke next. "Did you get him, Gorda?" he asked without even opening his eyes, rolling onto his side after a nice, long stretch. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and a bubble of saliva popped over his mouth after he yawned.

"No, we didn't get him. We're not going to." Gorda confessed with a somber lean of his head, turning his eyes up toward the sky. "He's really not so bad, you know?" He whispered, and the other two could hear him, but they didn't say much in response. They were probably exhausted, just like their teacher was. Gorda fell back again, resting his head on the stone. It was a longer day than he thought, but at least he had a lot more long ones to look forward to. Gorda couldn't help but smile; word of his failed assassination attempt would probably spread all around the country. Sasuke spared their lives, but what motive did he have to spare their reputation? Oh well; that night was beautiful either way.

* * *

A few weeks later, after Sasuke had spent a fair amount of time learning about the people of the Land of Earth and its shinobi headquarters, Iwagakure, he found himself on the way out. He made a point to keep his head clear, as he didn't want to miss the tea house that he had visited when he first arrived. He saw it in the distance, little and quaint compared to the vastness of the mountain ranges and steep valleys that he had grown used to in the rest of the nation. Sasuke smiled as he felt a sense of homecoming; he had only spent a brief time at the tea house, but he had been anticipating his return since he had left. He timed his journey so that it would set him down in the establishment at roughly the same time of day as his last visit. He got close, recognizing the painted white squares that spelled out _Tea House_, and then stepped inside.

He discarded his sandals at the door, and as he walked in through the decorative beads, he spotted the familiar face of Mika, who saw him as well right away and gave an excited wave, jumping up on one foot and lifting her other foot up with a bend of her knee. "Hey, Sasuke!" she shouted carelessly, then covered her mouth and blushed with the same belated comprehension that she showed the last time. She hadn't changed a bit, though it hadn't quite been a month yet. Sasuke lifted his hand to offer a wave; he had gotten a new travel cloak, same color and size, so he hoped that she wouldn't notice anything amiss.

"Hello, Mika," he offered as he walked further into the tea house, moving to the table he recalled. The crowd was much thinner that day, probably because the weather was nicer and the shelter wasn't as necessary. Gorda and the twins were absent. "Are you well?" he asked, taking stock of the other patrons as was his instinct. He made sure his back was facing the wall again.

"Oh, I'm fantastic, Sasuke," she said, this time making sure that her voice was low as she trailed along behind him like an adoring puppy. She vanished for just a moment behind the dividing wall, reappearing with a pair piping hot cups of tea. She sat with Sasuke immediately, presumably deciding that it was time for her break as she set one cup down in front of him, keeping the other for herself. "What about you? The day you came through, there was a massive earthquake; did you feel it? I felt it. I was balancing a whole plate of tea cups and dropped every single one of them." She rubbed the back of her head, looking off to the side. Her blush hadn't gone away since she saw his face, but it was definitely getting redder now.

Sasuke stifled a chuckle, trying not to offend her by laughing at her misfortune. "I'm glad to see you kept your job, at least," he says to her as he takes a sample sip from his tea cup. "I was looking forward to seeing you again, you know, Mika."

That set her off, her hands clapping to her cheeks and rubbing her skin anxiously. "Really, you were?" She was definitely flattered.

"Yeah. I wanted to tell you that you're a kind person; that you really brighten a traveler's day when he comes through here." He smiled sincerely; he had been working on that, and as time got further and further from the day he came to his senses, he found it easier and easier to feel sincere about things. He took another sip; even the tea seemed to taste better. Since his fight with Gorda and the twins, he came to terms with himself. He was ready to acknowledge the people who mattered to him. He had thought he was alone, even thought that he would always be alone. But Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi had been there for him whenever he needed them. Even with his famed Sharingan, he had been blind to what mattered for a long time. He wanted power, he wanted revenge, but all he really needed was a hot cup of tea from a person who mattered. He felt his own embarrassment as he thought about how simple his mind used to be.

"I'll brighten your day whenever you like, Sasuke!" Mika chimed in, and Sasuke heard her clearly.

"I'll keep that in mind, Mika. It's good to know that I'll always be in good hands," Sasuke responds, another sip of tea sliding past his teeth and over his tongue, warming the passage of his throat. It was soothing after a long few weeks of breathing the dry, dusty air that permeated the land. He had been drinking water, mostly. Fresh tea was a particular pleasure. "You asked me before if I had done more good things or bad things, yeah?"

"Yeah, but I was...I was just trying to get some words out of you," she said with her sweet eyes lingering on Sasuke's. "You came in all mysterious and reclusive, and I was just glad to know you had a voice at all. You seemed really distracted. You're not like that, this time. You're a lot warmer, now."

"I think I've made up my mind. I've done a lot of bad things, Mika," Sasuke began. "But it's behind me. From now on, I only want to do good things. Things that help others, like Naruto helped me." He gazes at his reflection in his tea. "Like she helped me, too," he said with a dreamy, reminiscent look. When Orochimaru's curse mark had its claws in him, years ago, when he was about to rip those sound ninjas in half one at a time, it was Sakura's voice, Sakura's touch, that tore him out of his rage. He had been weak, then. He should have kept her voice in his heart, but his thirst for power forced it out and replaced it with hatred.

"She?" Mika asked, a nosy glint in her eyes. She didn't seem disappointed or offended; she probably knew that she didn't have much of a chance of being Sasuke's lover, but her wide, curious eyes meant she really wanted to know about the person who did have that honor.

"Her name is Sakura Haruno. She's another member of my team, just like Naruto. Kakashi, too. I respect them, Mika. I treated them terribly and I regret it." He puts his hand over his half-drank cup of tea, as if to swear an oath. "Can I trust you as a witness, Mika?"

"Uh, sure!" She says with that flapping enthusiasm.

"I swear that I'll never hurt Sakura, Naruto, or Kakashi again. I swear that one day, my good things will outweigh the bad." He takes his hand from the cup's rim and then picks it up, taking another drink. It felt good to say it; he had thought those words plenty of times over the past couple of months, but he had never outright said it.

Mika nodded, a playfully serious squint in her eyes as she put her hand to her chest in salute. "And I swear that I heard you say that, so if you break your promise, I won't serve you tea anymore." She stuck her tongue out like a little brat, and Sasuke grinned earnestly, laughing with three subdued breaths.

"Now I really have to keep my promise," he says with a final sip of his beverage. Mika heard the empty clang it made as it was set down, and she was already standing up when he opened his mouth. "Could I have another cup?" He asked as it was spirited away into the back room and immediately replaced. He was happy to spend a quiet afternoon in a familiar place, even if it was a newly familiar place. "I see I really am in good hands," he says.

"I know you're probably going back to Konohagakure, but you can swing by here any time. One day I'll be the owner of this place, you see?" She pointed toward a picture hanging on the wall. It was Mika, a few years younger, flanked by a man and a woman who weren't quite middle-aged. Her parents, almost certainly. His initial suspicion had been correct. "So if you ever want to find me, come looking here." Everybody in the photo looked happy. Sasuke thought of the photo he took as a kid with his team.

"Maybe someday I'll bring my team here with me. I think they would like it." Sasuke took a sip out of his fresh cup, thinking once again of Sakura. He looked forward to seeing her again.


End file.
